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The Great Speckled Bird was one of several underground newspapers that appeared in the United States in the 1960s. Published in Atlanta from 1968 to 1976, The Bird, as it was commonly known, stood out among the alternative press for the quality of its writing, its cover art and its fearless opinions and reporting on a range of topics—national and local politics, the counterculture, women’s issues, gay liberation, reproductive choice, music, art…The Bird was a new, radical voice from the South.

In 2010, Georgia State University Library began a project to digitize The Great Speckled Bird for inclusion in its digital collections — an effort to create a searchable, accessible online resource for students, historians, and researchers. In support of this project, former members of the Atlanta Cooperative News Project and the Atlanta Progressive Media Foundation, owners of the copyright toThe Bird, gave Georgia State University Library rights to place the publication online for educational and non-commercial use. While the University Library’s Special Collections and Archives department owned a near complete run of the publication, members of The Bird community helped fill gaps by donating or loaning additional issues. Scanning for this project was completed in early 2011 and the digitized issues of The Bird were made available online in April.

Copyright to items in this collection is owned by the Atlanta Cooperative News Project. Images may be used for scholarship, educational, and personal use. Additional uses will require permission of the rights holder.